I7 3770 or I7 4790?

Ejraam

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May 5, 2014
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i don't entend on overclocking any thing...
my motherboard socket is 1155
should i buy the i7 4790 and a new motherboard for the socket?....or should i just buy the i7 3770 and keep my current motherboard?..
budget isn't an issue...i just want to know if the performance is worth the money...
i want it to perform well on CPU demanding games like Planetside 2...
Knowing that i am upgrading from i5 3470
 

Pr3di

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Based on the interwebs you should get about 5-10% improvement from the 3770 to the 4790.
If this improvement in performance is worth a new mobo and probably a more expensive CPU, it`s your choice to make.
 
What is the rest of your build? Maybe you have a slow graphics card, not enough RAM or slow hard drive?

i7 3770 will give you very little over your current i5, and the difference mainly boils down to 300MHz higher frequency of the i7, much less to more threads. This will be barely noticeable for gaming, maybe few FPS here and there. Planetside 2, like most games, cannot utilise 8 threads efficiently, but likes fast per-core performance, which your i5 already has, so I'd just keep the i5 and forget about upgrading.

4790 is even less worth it - you have to change the entire platform just to get 10% more CPU performance, which will likewise be barely visible in gaming.

If performance of your i5 is not good enough for you, I'm afraid there's not much you can do apart from getting an overclockable i5 and a good cooler.
 

PCBuilderProbs

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hyperthreading with an i7 will most definitely help keep the computer up-to-date for years to come vs not having hyperthreading with the i5.
 


By the time hyperthreading starts being useful for gaming, 6 or 8 core CPUs or better architectures will already be the norm and much faster, so I'd say i7 is at the same level of being "future proof" as a regular i5.
 

Ejraam

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will...the FPS drops insanely in heavy battles (+200 players) and the game indecates that the drop is caused by the cpu...could that be a mistake?... i also notice some frame gaps (the screen stops at a certian frame for a second) while playing some big games..like AC unity or GTA V

could it be the GPU ?

my specs are:
I5-3470
GTX 660 2GB OC
8 GB RAM
1 TB Western Digital WD Green Hard Drive
700 W PSU

any thoughts?
 
Check your CPU and GPU temperatures while gaming, overheating can cause sudden FPS drops.

As for general performance in planetside 2, you would actually gain more with an overclockable i5 than any non-OCable i7. It just loves raw performance per core, and hyperthreading won't help here.
 

RobCrezz

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Hyperthreading is already useful for gaming in some modern titles.
 
True. And gains from HT are usually very slight, only visible in benchmarks and very specific scenarios, like using 3 or 4 graphics cards at the same time. This difference can easily be mitigated on an i5 with a simple OC by a few hundred MHz (if you have a K version, of course). In other words, differences are there, but are not worth the price and 99.9% of titles don't use them. But even if all current games were written with HT in mind, HT is simply not a replacement for a true physical core, even in best cases performance differences are negligible, apart from video editing / rendering. Add to that the fact that GPUs have much higher impact on gaming than CPUs, and ther's just no reason to upgrade from i5 to i7 for gaming.

If the OP really, really needs to squeeze out a few FPS more, he will be much better off with a faster graphics card. That 660 he has is nowhere near, say, GTX 970.
 

RobCrezz

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Currently, yes the differences are minimal with 4 cores + HT, but I bet this will change. Just look a benchmarks for the i3s, theres a big boost in gaming performance between a dual core pentium and the equivalent dual core i3 with HT enabled.
 
The problem with dual cores, unlike quads, is that "pure" dual cores are nowhere near capable of current game requirements for concurrent threads. So i3 is a clear winner by a good amount in titles that require 4 threads, sure. But at the moment, there is almost no game that uses more than 4 threads, most of them even use below that number. That will probably change in the future, it's just that I don't see that coming around the corner until 8-cores (and I mean, physical 8-cores, not HT-enabled quads) become mainstream. Given the past developments (quads have been available for almost 10 years!) I just don't see it happening in next 10 years or so. CPU developments are getting extremely slow, and something big needs to happen for things to change significantly. Something revolutionary. Even if that happens, quads might still be the norm (just getting more performance per core would be good anyway).
 

Pyre

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Apr 10, 2015
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In this case since your asking i7 3770 or 4790... get which ever is cheaper however some retailer sell 3770 near the same price as 4790 which is so silly. I know the 4790 is not a big gap against the 3770 like 10-15% difference if anything so it is not worth the extra cost.
You might find a cheap 3770 if you do decide to change.
 

Ejraam

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Pyre, herrwizo, RobCrezz

thank you all for your answers...i am deciding to go with the i7 3770...
one last thing...is buying a cpu(Used-Like new) a good idea?...the seller doesn't have lots of ratings (30 people at most rated) but they are all 100% ratings...
any thoughts?
 

Pyre

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*Sigh* I totally agree with Dubbleclick is soo right, your just wasting your cash honestly. You asked "i just want to know if the performance is worth the money" ... mate no, going to 4790 is a waste. I guess if you can't find reasonable price for 3770 then go on and get the 4790, but really planetside 2 should be decent on i5 the jump to i7 will be like 15% maybe.
 
Yup, pure waste of money. OP, I'd just keep your current i5 CPU and focus more on upgrading the weakest link in the chain, namely your GTX660 GPU. Get GTX970 or at least GTX960. You will gain much more performance this way as compared to a CPU upgrade. If you really need to squeeze the CPU as much as you can, overclockable i5 will be better than non-overclockable i7 for gaming. But we are still talking about a few fps here and there, not worth your money.
 

Storm-cooled72

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heh.... my build is almost identical... i'm selling my rig, so if you want, you can shoot me an offer on the i7. Another thing is that you could add another 660, which I have, and that would bring you to the level of a gtx 970. I had an I5, and the i7 gave me 15-20 fps increase in titanfall, but in far cry, only around 5-10.